The 2016 Tony Awards

The 2016 Tony Awards

Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri

I’ve been a consumer and critic of American journalism since the Watergate era of the early 1970s. With some notable exceptions like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Watergate reporting and the Boston Globe’s expose of the child rape scandal in the Catholic Church (chronicled powerfully in the great film “Spotlight”), national reporting/commentary on politics in that time has never been the CRUSADING FOURTH ESTATE we read about in Journalism 101 textbooks. But in only two years did American journalism sink to a level of badness that might with some justification be called “evil.”

The evil years of American journalism? Let’s call them 2003 and 2016.

For those who don’t remember (or choose to forget), 2003 was the year that American journalism not only failed in its basic watchdog responsibilities in the run up to the Iraq War and beyond, but even sunk to the level of pathetic cheerleaders.  The ultimate responsibility for that foreign policy fiasco rests with the Bush Administration and bipartisan majorities in Congress who went along for the death ride, but the sleazy politicians and war profiteers were aided and abetted every step of the way by a servile press that refused (and refuses to this very day) to allow arguments for peace to compete fairly with war mongering in the marketplace of ideas. As noted by journalism prof Christian Christensen: “The one-sidedness of coverage, particularly in the US, bordered on the morally criminal.”  

In 2016 Donald Trump—a narcissistic huckster, conspiracy monger, and public policy lightweight—took on the Republican establishment with a political shock and awe operation that took the typically subtle bigotry and intolerance of GOP campaigns and put it right in our collective face. The Donald’s entry into the race called for principled, courageous journalism; instead, a man who was probably the most divisive candidate in the history of the country received literally billions of dollars of free advertising. Trump’s tweets—which almost always demonstrate that he really is as delusional and dumb as you think—generated (and continue to generate) countless hours of “analysis” from the same pundits who assured us that Hillary’s “blue firewall” would rescue us from four years of orange hued oafishness.

But I digress. The purpose of this month’s column is not to condemn the year’s worst journalism, but to praise some of the best. Every year since 2002 I’ve awarded a “Tony” for journalism, commentary, and/or other media productions that, for some of us at least, went above and beyond the call of journalistic duty during the year. The winners for 2016 are:

Journalism as Creating Urgency: Rachel Maddow’s Flint Reporting. 2016 was a rough year for cable television liberals. Their acceptance of the legitimacy of the faceless, corporate controlled bureaucracy running the nation’s capital made it virtually impossible for them to come to terms with the populist insurgency represented by the Trump and Sanders movements.  Having disavowed grassroots activism as a viable political strategy, establishment liberals and their cable tv cronies were left with mocking Trump, ignoring Sanders, and monitoring Nate Silver’s 538 blog to reassure themselves that “moderation” (or at least lesser evilism) would ultimately prevail. Oops.

Like all other cable tv liberals, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow had a rough time covering the presidential campaigns. Hopefully that will not detract from what for me was the single greatest act of journalism we’ve ever seen on cable television: I’m talking about Maddow’s shocking revelation of the racist politics that led to the poisoning of the water in Flint, Michigan. Ancient rhetoricians coined the term “kairos” to describe the act of giving urgency to an issue. Thanks to Maddow, the issue of excessive lead levels in public water supplies now has kairos in scores of cities. What made Maddow’s reporting especially powerful was the fact that she connected the dots and showed how the poisoning of Flint’s water was the DIRECT result of Michigan’s “emergency manager” legislation that robbed the city of its democracy.

The investigations sparked by Maddow’s reporting have led to criminal charges against two of the “emergency managers.” Both were thrown under the bus by Governor Rick Snyder—the mastermind of the emergency manager policy who-- if justice is to prevail in this tragedy, should at a minimum be removed from office and possibly face charges himself.

Best Trump Coverage (Tie): The New York Times’ David Barstow, Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, and Megan Twohey on Trump’s taxes; The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold on the Trump Foundation.  Not all mainstream media coverage of Mr. Trump was awful. When it became clear that Trump had no intention of releasing his taxes, and that he would continue to lie about the reason why (“I am under audit.” Right.), four New York Times reporters were able to get access to a portion of Trump’s 1995 tax return. Through some deft research, they discovered that Trump’s “net operating losses” from that year would have theoretically made it possible for him to avoid paying any federal taxes until 2010.

Did Trump respond to the New York Times report by pledging more transparency in his personal financial reporting? No. He claimed instead that the real story of the report was that the reporters illegally obtained the 1995 tax return.

Of all the mainstream journalists covering Trump, none is more forceful or important than the Washingon Post’s David Fahrenthold. Called “nasty” by Trump himself, Fahrenthold worked tirelessly in 2016 to try and hold Trump to account for his many claims and promises. Trump’s late December announcement that he would be closing down his Foundation was a direct result of the numerous irregularities in its operation uncovered by Fahrenthold. Not surprisingly, Trump’s alt-right minions claimed a partisan political agenda in the reporting, but as noted recently by Fahrenthold:

“The point of my stories was not to defeat Trump. The point was to tell readers the facts about this man running for president. How reliable was he at keeping promises? How much moral responsibility did he feel to help those less fortunate than he?”

In 2017 we will need many MORE reporters asking such basic questions.

Best Tweetstorm: Jay Rosen’s “Winter is Coming”.  NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen’s writings, including his PressThink blog, have for years been invaluable resources for those seeking to figure out ways to make real world journalism live up to its promise of serving the cause of small-d democracy.

In 2016 Rosen took to Twitter to warn of the unique threats posed to press freedom by Donald Trump. The mindfulness of Rosen’s tweets run in perfect contrast to the mindlessness of Mr. Trump’s. Rosen’s 20-part tweetstorm, “Winter is Coming,” laid down what is (or should be) THE question for journalism in the Trump era: “The problem is not at the level ‘how to cover Trump,’ but how to recover conditions in which anything journalists do makes a difference.”

Best Mea Culpa: Charlie Sykes on Where the Right Went Wrong. It took the specter of a Trump presidency to do it, but in August Charlie Sykes, the Dean of Right Wing Radio in Wisconsin, in an interview with journalist Oliver Darcy finally took some responsibility for the contemporary right wing’s alternate reality. Sykes followed up with a December op-ed in the New York Times in which he expanded how the situation had gotten so bad:

“One staple of every radio talk show was, of course, the bias of the mainstream media. This was, indeed, a target-rich environment. But as we learned this year, we had succeeded in persuading our audiences to ignore and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over time, we’d succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether — all the normal guideposts were down, the referees discredited.”

Sykes still insists that political con men like Paul Ryan and Scott Walker somehow represent a coherent “conservative” philosophy, and his many years of flacking for some terrible people and policies should not be easily forgiven or swept under the rug. But to have someone of his status and influence in conservative circles argue for the existence of reality is an important step in helping to reform partisan politics in this country.

Wisest Explanation of the Trump Phenomenon: Gary Younge’s “How Trump Took Middle America.”  In the 19^th century the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America offered what was for its time an insightful interpretation of the United States from a European perspective. In 2016 it took another European, this time British journalist Gary Younge, to explain the Trump phenomenon. In a lengthy but gripping piece for the Guardian, Younge recounts his interaction with Trump supporters in the Midwest and shows just how completely out of touch were the establishment Democrats:

Trump, and his counterparts, are often described in Europe as a threat to democracy. But in truth they would be better understood as the product of a democracy already in crisis . . .

You can pin it on the Russians, WikiLeaks, the FBI, the media, third parties, and they all played a role. But sooner or later moderate liberals are going to have to own the consequences of their politics. In this period of despair and volatility, their offer of milquetoast, market-led managerialism is not a winning formula. For a political camp that boasts of its pragmatic electability, it has quite simply failed to adapt.

Carefully scripted but complacently framed, the Clinton campaign emerged from a centrist political tradition at a moment where there is no center, offering market-based solutions at a time when Clinton’s own base has begun to see the free market as part of the problem.

The Occam’s Razor Award for the Simplest and Most Cogent Statement of Why Hillary Clinton Lost: Lou Cannon’s “On the Importance of Just Being There.”  At some point establishment Democrats will get over their fixation with Putin, Comey, Jill Stein, and WikiLeaks and start to come to terms with some of the shortcomings of their 2016 campaign. They should start by reading Lou Cannon’s short but insightful essay, “On the Importance of Just Being There.” Cannon’s a long time political writer and operative who’s written five biographies of Ronald Reagan. He shows in his piece how Reagan almost lost the 1980 nomination because early in the campaign his handlers had calculated—inaccurately as it turned out—that he could run a kind of “Rose Garden strategy” and not have to do any street level campaigning. After losing the Iowa Caucuses, the Reagan people shifted gears and their candidate became more visible in key counties.

Hillary Clinton, who won the national popular vote by almost 3 million ballots, lost Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by less than 80,000 votes. Cannon argues that Clinton simply needed to spend more time in those states: “What we do know suggests that Hillary Clinton might now be preparing to take the oath of office if she and her team had been less confident of victory and campaigned full time in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the firewall states that weren’t. Instead of blaming Putin or Comey for their discomfort, Clinton and her advisers should take a peek in the mirror.”

The Guilty of Committing an Act of Journalism Award: Amy Goodman’s Dakota Access Pipeline Reporting. Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman has been one of the MVP’s of citizen based journalism for many years. In 2016 her courageous reporting on the brutal corporate suppression of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters got her arrested. Charges were eventually dropped, and the Obama Administration did respond to the protest pressure by halting construction of the pipeline.

Without Amy Goodman’s reporting, the true nature of what was happening at Standing Rock would never have been known. She’s done that kind of reporting on numerous citizen movements, almost single-handedly challenging the narrative that the masses are apathetic or completely brainwashed by government and corporate propaganda. As noted by Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi: “she's as close to the ideal of what it means to be a journalist as one can get in this business.”

Best New Critical Thinking Tool: Indiana University’s “Hoaxy”. One terrible consequence of the social media age is the rapidity with which completely unverified, false stories can spread. With hyperpartisans on all sides all too ready to accept the absolute worst about their opponents, the preponderance of so-called “fake” news will only get worse.

What’s needed is training in media literacy at the earliest possible age, probably middle school. Teachers involved in such training will need resources that can help them demonstrate to learners what constitutes an unverified story and how it spreads. In 2016 researchers at Indiana University launched “Hoaxy,” an online resource that allows users to visualize the spread of unverified information. According to the site’s creators: “The World Economic Forum ranks massive digital misinformation among the top future global risks, along with water supply crises, major systemic financial failures, and failure to adapt to climate change. Social news observatories such as Hoaxy have the potential to shed light on this phenomenon and help us develop effective countermeasures.”

Can Hoaxy and similar resources help reduce the spread of misinformation? Maybe, but only if we can find a way to restore trust in journalism and do what we can to spread the critical work represented by this year’s Tony Award recipients.